h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For the last quarter I'm winning the groups incentive prize.

here are the hard fact.

In 3 months I've taken over 5700 calls.

At an average of 230 seconds per call.

Be on hold for 1% of the time and not ready for only 3%.

If any of you guys have worked in a call centre you can work out that this is a lot of productivity. It has been kinda busy here lately.

5700 calls?!?

And what percentage of your sanity do you think you've got left?

Honestly, I don't know how anyone copes with working in one of those places. I think I'd last about half an hour before I started screaming.

% sanity left 0-1%

As for screaming I do that every day.

That's pretty impressive!

What my insniaty levels or what?

All of it

The only people who ring me are people from call centres trying to sell me something.

DD never rings me through.



Slacker

Someone from Orange rang my mobile today & persuaded me to take a brand new phone, 150 free weekend texts, £15 a month for 6 months, he took my name, marital status and then asked me my job



Then he apologized profoundly, and said I could ring him, when I have a job, and take up the offer. Except that the offer is only valid for a few days.

Sometimes I think if it wasn't for call centre people, my tongue would rust and drop off from misuse.

Sorry GB I only receive incoming calls, I don't do cold calling, that I save for election campaigning.

And I believe your mobile phone is with a different manufacturer last time I saw it so you're also unlikely to need to call me.

there are my 2 questions answered. i think helpline work is much better for self esteem than telemarketing.

the pace of the work makes stress inevitable, but the technical expertise necessary and the good feeling that goes from helping people probably make it a rewarding job. right or wrong?

you may have some funny stories about particularly clueless callers to share?

Ho yus, I have loads of those too

But you're right - if you do the job right, there is a lot of reward in working in customer service, on a helpline or whatever. You might be having a crappy day but even if one person out of 20 goes away totally happy, you know you've done your job